Our Aims and Philosophies

Last Updated: June 29, 2016

At Holmer Lake Primary School we expect your child to work hard and achieve the highest possible standards, whilst having fun! We aim for every child to leave Holmer Lake Primary School, having achieved the very best that they can and feeling proud of their achievements.

In order to do this, we explicitly teach the following life skills, to ensure that our learners are resilient, resourceful, reciprocal and reflective in their next stage of learning and beyond.

Be a Tough Tortoise – Be Resilient

Resilience is being ready, willing and able to lock onto learning- knowing how to work through difficulties when the pressure mounts or the going gets tough.

Resilience is made up of:

Absorption – being able to loose yourself in learning- becoming absorbed in what you are doing.

Managing distractions – recognising and reducing distractions; knowing when to walk away and refresh yourself. Creating your own best environment for learning.

Perseverance – keeping going in the face of difficulties, channelling the energy of frustration productively. Knowing what a slow and uncertain process learning often is.

Be a Sensible Squirrel – Be Resourceful

Resourcefulness is being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways-using resources available to them. These may be resources which they can find in the classroom or it might be their own resources

Resourcefulness is made up of:

Questioning – asking questions of yourself and others. Being curious, wanting to find things out, wanting to know things in more depth.

Making links – seeing connections between totally different events and experiences, building patterns and weaving a web of understanding

Imagining – Using your imagination and intuition to put yourself through new experiences or to explore possibilities. Wondering ‘what if…?’

Reasoning – Working things out methodically and rigorously, constructing good arguments and spotting flaws in others’ points of view.

Capitalising – Drawing on the full range of resources from the wider world – other people, books, the Internet, past experience, future opportunities.

Be a Team Ant – Be Reciprocal

Reciprocity in learning is being ready , willing and able to learn alone or with other people – using a sense of independent judgement together with skills in communication and empathy

Reciprocity is made up of:

Interdependence – knowing when it’s appropriate to learn on your own or with others, and being able to stand your ground in debate.

Collaboration – knowing how to manage yourself in the give and take of a collaborative activity, respecting and recognising other view points; adding to and drawing from the strength of teams.

Empathy and listening – contributing to others’ experiences by listening to them to understand what they are really saying, and putting yourself in their shoes.

Imitation – constructively adopting methods, habits or values from other people who you watch.

Be a Wise Owl – Be Reflective

Reflectiveness is being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning – taking a longer-term view by planning, taking stock, and drawing out your experiences as a learner to get the best out of yourself

Reflectiveness is made up of:

Planning – Thinking about where you are going, the action you are going to take, the time and resources you will need and the obstacles you may encounter

Revising – Being flexible, changing your plans in the light of different circumstances, monitoring and reviewing how things are going and seeing new opportunities

Distilling – Looking at what is being learned, pulling out the essential features, carrying them forward to aid further learning; being your own learning coach.

Meta-learning – knowing yourself as a learner, how you learn best; how to talk about the learning process